


Satiety

by phantomas (sil)



Category: Great Gatsby - F. Scott Fitzgerald
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-27
Updated: 2010-08-27
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:50:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sil/pseuds/phantomas
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Written for the[info]straying_thread Yuletide Story Exchange 2005, and specifically for alanshore's mun. <br/>The ** indicate references at the end of the story. <br/>Thanks to Sue, she helped at the last minute and made a significant difference :)</p>
    </blockquote>





	Satiety

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the[info]straying_thread Yuletide Story Exchange 2005, and specifically for alanshore's mun.   
> The ** indicate references at the end of the story.   
> Thanks to Sue, she helped at the last minute and made a significant difference :)

The rain started slowly, tiny drops here and there. The sky wasn't even heavy grey with clouds yet. The drizzle however was still uncomfortable, and many of the afternoon guests just disappeared into the house, a swarm of bees buzzing back into their hive.

Of course, it wasn't exactly their hive, it was Gatsby's. But that was how things were. By now, I knew it well. I was in fact one of the many afternoon guests, another drifter on the current of fame and entertainment that always filled Gatsby's house. After a solitary lunch, I simply walked in from my garden to his, mingling with the others already there, the way I had done already a few times.

Having met Gatsby, you couldn't not wonder about him, about his life, his dreams. I knew a little, already, probably more than anyone else around, and certainly a lot more than I wanted to know. Yet, in the same way Gatsby moved towards that green light visible across the water, a moth to a flame that seemed to be barely in his reach, I was moved towards him. Curiosity. That was what I would tell myself, anyhow.

Until that afternoon, when the drizzle rapidly changed into a downpour worthy of the title of 'summer storm', with the accompanyment of thundering thunders and sharp lightenings.  
I sought refuge in the house, along with the other remaining guests. Some gathered in one of the downstairs drawing rooms, calling for tea, and finding a gramophone and records to dance to. Others ran to their cars, coats thrown over the ladies' heads, shrieks and laughter over the sound of the pebbles under the cars' tires.  
I wandered on my own for a while, using an handkerchief to dry my hair. The library had always been my favorite room, since that very first time I entered it, finding that very drunk, weird man in there. Now it was empty.

As always, I stared at the books, title after title, trying to fathom what kind of man would have those books in his collection, if he had read them all, if they were there only as a symbol of something far more complex, and deeper. Or if they were just a facade, another piece of the puzzle that was the Great Gatsby.

Fastidious by nature, I was unpleasantly aware of my rain-soaked clothes. I called for a servant to light the fire, and then settled down in one of the armchairs. A heavy, leather-bound book resting on the close-by coffee table attracted my attention. Little did I know that within the space of another hour or so, events were to unfold that would make me forever the unwilling keeper of yet another secret.

I picked the book up, tracing its thick deep red bounding with the tip of a finger. Dante Alighieri, the golden lettering spelt. The Divine Comedy. Inferno. Hell. I flipped it open, wondering, in my financially-oriented mind, what would Gatsby perceive from such readings…

In the middle of the journey of our life I came to myself within a dark wood where the straight way was lost.*

The sentence struck a chord in me, resonating vibrantly. I read it aloud, murmuring it at first, then louder. A quiet sound behind me almost made me jump in my armchair. Gatsby was there, rain-soaked as I was.

"Intriguing read, isn't it?" he asked me. There was a twinkle in his eyes, and maybe a sort of kindness, which I wasn't accustomed to see in his eyes. A dreamy longing quality I have seen there before, mirrored in the green light on the opposite shore. But this was new. A glimpse of something else. A glimpse of Someone Else.

Gatsby took the book from my hands, a cold touch that made me shiver. Pages were turned, and then he read aloud to me: "A fair request should be followed by the deed in silence."*

I stole the book back, standing up. Had mine been a request? Have I ever…? My fingers moved quickly between the pages, and my eyes chose for me. "Consider your breed; you were not made to live like beasts, but to follow virtue and knowledge."* My voice sounded perhaps defiant, but ironically so. I had moved between the heavy mahogany desk and the fireplace.

A smile barely curling his lips, but his eyes sparkling, Gatsby was behind the desk itself. He grabbed another book from the shelf behind him - did he know what title that was, or was that choice driven by chance? "The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it... I can resist everything but temptation."**

"Ah," I exclaimed, caught in the game, ready enough to catch the book he threw at me. Another page, another quote read aloud in the dusty room. "Simple pleasures are always the last refuge of the complex."**

I had barely finished reading when Gatsby had another book in his hands, one with a small, dark green cover and yellowish pages. "Joy is never-" fast, he was, faster than I expected, so when I arrived behind the desk, he had already stepped closer to the window, and the rain pattern drawn on the glass panels. "-in our power, and pleasure often is."***

Was it me, or there had been a peculiar inflection on the word 'pleasure'? My shivering was certainly due to this silly game of catching we had started, and my moving away from the fireplace. My eyes fell on a name unknown, printed on the side of a battered book, but for the sake of the dare, I picked it up by guess and - I admit it - almost laughing, I closed my eyes, pointed my finger at a random line, opened my eyes and read it aloud. "Love ceases to be a pleasure, when it ceases to be a secret…"

The line fell into silence, like my laugh. Quickly, I grabbed a better known volume, and sought a line better suited. In the meantime, my feet took me to the window, but Gatsby already had moved away, back towards the fireplace, and I could see his eyes darting over the books' covers, searching for a weapon. I read my line louder than before, to fill the silence. "The aim of the wise is not to secure pleasure, but to avoid pain."***** One can't go wrong with the classic, can one?

I had moved away from the window too, following Gatsby, without realising that he was by now close to the library's door, hands holding yet another book, both of us slightly out of breath. That was only because of the fast pacing, of course, and the humidity of our clothes; how silly to engage in such behaviour, for two grown men. By the time I reached him, he was ready to read to me, once again. "Spangling the wave with lights as vain… As pleasures in this vale of pain…That dazzle as they fade." ******

He must have known the words by heart, though, because the book was closed and put back on the nearest shelf as his lips were still moving, warm breath from his words hitting my clammy skin. How come I was so close now? I hadn't realised. He had no where else to go, I was between him and the rest of the room, the heavy panelled door behind him. I should have stepped back, stepped away. I should have picked up another book, kept playing that silly game of ours. My hand moved, touched a book…but it fell from my fingers.

The warmth of his fingertips brushing my cheek held me still, in place.

Such sadness, in his eyes, now.

Such hunger.

I closed my eyes. Came to myself, as Dante had written. And both of us were lost, then, within a dark wood where the straight way was lost…

I was rearranging my clothes, after, alone, in the library, the fire still crackling in the fireplace. It had stopped raining, in the meantime, but the sky was still grey and gloomy. My eyes fell on the book I had dropped, its pages open.

"In everything, satiety closely follows the greatest pleasures." *******

 

\-------------  
References in order of appearance:

* Dante Alighieri (1265-1321), Italian poet.  
"Inferno," cto. 1, l. 1-3, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321)  
"The Inferno," cto. 18, The Divine Comedy (c. 1307-1321). Ulysses speaking.

** Oscar Wilde, sayings

***C.S. Lewis

****Aphra Behn  
http://www.ipl.org.ar/cgi-bin/ref/litcrit/litcrit.out.pl?au=beh-106

***** Aristotle

****** Sir Walter Scott, The Lord of the Isles (canto I, st. 23)

******* Cicero


End file.
